At the recent CppCon 2014, Chandler Carruth gave a great talk on using Modern C++ for writing high-performance applications. 

Efficiency with Algorithms, Performance with Data Structures

by Chandler Carruth

From the video introduction:

C++ programmers throughout the industry have an insatiable desire for writing high performance code. Unfortunately, even with C++, this can be really challenging. Over the past twenty years processors, memory, software libraries, and even compilers have radically changed what makes C++ code fast. Even measuring the performance of your code can be a daunting task. This talk will dig into how modern processors work, what makes them fast, and how to exploit them effectively with modern C++ code.